A Tasca

First let me say, How great the owner is. I tried a friends meal and forgot to realize it had shellfish. Well, the owner helped me get anti histamine to stop the reaction. Life saver! Prior to the reaction my tuna steak encased with sesame seeds and our tapas were amazing! The wine selection was great! The ambiance of the restaurant was perfect.

Tasca was recommended by my daughter who was there in October. It was wow and didn’t disappoint. We had tapas and everything we ordered was great. We had flaming chorizo, some type of «typical» Portuguese dish of bread crumbs and egg, and a few other dished recommended by our waiter. The place is lively and the waiter very helpful. Get reservations in advance even on the weekdays.

While visiting Ponta Delagada we came across Tasca and we’re glad we did — ended up having lunch there twice in 4 days and it was epic! The grilled fish I had was crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, and the clams in white wine & garlic were cooked to perfection (we used a lot of the bread they brought us to sop up the broth). All the small plates we tried were good, from the vegetarian options to chorizo flambé.
If you’re going for dinner, reservations are needed, however for a late lunch/​early dinner we were able to walk in with no delay.

The menu is large. Most of the tapas is on the first few pages and there are a ton of options. It’s not daunting but it is a challenge not to order too many things.
We got:
Fried chicken wings with hot sauce 5 €
There were 5 wings, they were dry and over cooked
Garlic bread 2 € burscetta style.
Tuna carpaccio 3.5 € they were seasoned with soy suace.
Breaded octopus rings with a sweet chutney 4.8 €
Shrimp fried in olive oil and flavored with chili peppers and wine 9.5 € one of the highlights!
Sautéed Mushrooms 4.2 € (amazing with Pancetta and cheese)
Grilled tuna steak in a sesame seed crust, sautéed with vegetables and sweet potato or taro. 9.5 €
Apple danish 3.8 €
Pork filet sandwich and frech fries 3.5 €
The place is dark and chill, no complaints about the ambiance, the service was slow. Funny, why is the service slow? Because the food is prepared when you order it and it’s not rushed. It’s great, just be prepared to have a long meal.

Our favorite dining experience on the island, which was why we ate dinner there on 2 separate occasions. Everything we selected was fresh and delicious — sesame tuna, tuna carpaccio, squid salad, curry garbanzo beans, and, best of all, the spicy shrimp.
Our server was a genius — selecting a perfectly appropriate Portuguese wine for our palates and providing a chef-​made spicy oil to adroitly satisfy our request for some «heat» (Texans can’t survive long without a peppery ambrosia that tingles one’s lips and creates fire in the back of one’s throat). Service was swift and the interior is old world Portuguese charm.

O restaurante ideal para quem gosta da experiência de comer tapas.
O ambiente é agradável, com decoração típica de taverna antiga, convidativo a longo serão na companhia de amigos para uma conversa agradável, comer e beber até tarde.
Tem uma oferta variada de tapas e petiscos, na verdade, a lista de tapas é extensa e bastante interessante. Os preços são médios.
Podem melhorar no atendimento que varia também com o número de pessoas que estejam nesse momento na tasca.

Absoluter Glücksfall, auf der Suche nach einem Restaurant auf das A Tasca gestoßen und … Einfach super.
Die witzige Karte in Form einer Zeitung, das fixe, freundliche und kompetente Personal und das tolle Essen. Auch wenn die Karte portugisisch, englisch und deutsch spricht kann man sich auf die Empfehlungen konzentrieren. Hier spielt der Fisch die Hauptrolle, dem man absolut den Vorrang einräumen sollte.
Aber die Blutwurst mit Ananas muss dabei sein!
Die Weinwahl überlässt man dem Personal, es sei denn man kennt sich in den angebotenen 50 – 60 Weinen selber aus :-)
Das Ganze gibt es dann für gut 25 € pro Person inclusive Brandy und Dessert.
Also den Besuch unbedingt mit einplanen und reservieren, denn sonst ist die Bude voll.

3 for food and 4 overall once you factor in ambiance and service.
Tasca was quite tasty. The place also fills up basically every night so you’re highly advised to make reservations ahead of time. The pace of dinner is quite relaxed with ours taking close to 3 hours.
A neat gimmick — the menu is printed on and made to resemble a newspaper sitting on the table.
Most wine bottles are below 10 euros.
For appetizers we had the cheese and meat plate (size medium), the octopus salad, and the pickled sausage with fried taro cake. Everything was decent, with no real stand outs. The pickled sausages had a good flavor but they also tasted quite dry, like they were cooked too long.
The tuna steak was considerably better than the dry hockey puck we had the night before at Restaurante Nacional but the meat was more grey than red/​pink. Not sure if that’s the variety of tuna they catch here or if there’s something else going on. Flavor was ‘ok’.
The seafood chowder is served in a large bowl with a baked dough top (like a pot pie). Once you break the seal, there’s a large rush of steam as the contents are piping hot. There’s an assortment of shrimp, clams, and 3 other kinds of fish inside. I think our server pointed out that sting ray (or skate?) was one of them and he was keen to tell me how good the flavor was. I think the chowder was tasty, but not a knock out. The serving size is substantial and you can choose to eat more or less of the top crust depending on how hungry you are.
We were aiming for the honey pudding and pineapple cake as they came highly recommended however, by the time we got to dessert they were both sold out. Boooooo… (guess that means they’re good?). As a consolation, we picked up the rice pudding and bean cake — I enjoyed both.
While the food was «good» it wasn’t amazing and I think it deserves a solid 3 star for food. However, the ambiance is warm and the pace is slow and leisurely, you get to enjoy your meal and your company. Our server was friendly and helpful. I’d rate the overall experience as a 4. Go check it out.

Hands down the best restaurant on the island of São Miguel! This is no over statement, every other quality restaurant is pushing the same ol Polvo and Lulas on you wherever you go, Tasca takes traditional recipes and makes them awesome. Sesame seed Tuna with sweet potato and taro, breaded octopus with chutney– fogetaboutit! I could live off this stuff. And the service?- these guys are the best of the best. But — important but– you gotta reserve. If I had a dime for every lost tourist who walks in and gets turned away– do yourself a favor, reserve the day before, and when desert comes, three words: pudim de Mel.

All I could say was wow. The place was recommended to us by our tour guide and it did not disappoint. My wife had a Portuguese traditional sandwhich which was steak, ham, cheese, linguica, topped with a fried egg. It was amazing. I had the tuna steak which was good, but no where near my wife’s dish. The service was good and the staff friendly.

The year was 1998 when last I set foot on Portuguese soil. Thus I can hardly be considered an expert in Portuguese food. If there are vast differences between the fare of the mainland and that of the Azores, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. But what I can tell you is that after a week on Sao Miguel, Tasca was the best eating experience I had.
The staff were cool about two of us showing up without reservations, even though the restaurant was barely occupied when we walked through the door. That changed quickly, and I could see why. Their food was good, all of it.
The menu points out which dishes are traditional Portuguese and Azorean, and otherwise. We stuck with Azorean all the way. One of the first things I noticed is that while great, this is not refined food. By that I mean everything comes not drastically altered from its original form. Shrimp are still in the shells, limpets too, and even fish will still have bones. We are spoiled in America, I think, always getting de-​shelled and de-​veined shrimp, boneless cuts of meat and such. Here, you have to work for your meal a little. Annoying to some, I still think the meal gets enhanced a little.
The highlight of the one meal here was the fish stew. They brought a large pot before us laid over with flaky basked, pastry shell, which you pound through to get to the cod, clams, shrimp and potatoes. Order extra bread to seep up the broth. Brilliant.
Beers were super cheap, small ones going for a Euro each.
Prepare to walk out of here stuffed. I recommend sharing the multiple tapas. The one entrée, the cod stew, would have been plenty for two, with the bread included.

This restaurant was recommended by our tour guide and tour mates. There are some really interesting flavors in the traditional food. The waiter was very patient and explained a large part of the menu to us. My boyfriend got to try 2 different wines before ordering a glass of one of the red wines. The soup and appetizer we ordered came out quick. The soup was lukewarm though and I prefer my soups hot. The appetizer we ordered was a pastry like dish which my boyfriend loved. It’s really good. Our next dish came out some time after that. By then the restaurant started to get busy. Our last dish which were clams took nearly 40 minutes. When it came, the flavors were there, but the clams were below par. The shells make it seem like the clams are normal sized, but when you eat it, there’s barely any meat there so that was disappointing. Overall the menu items were good, and the service was good, but make sure you go before 7 because once they start getting busy, they don’t seem to have a good system to handle the rush. They also asked us if we had a reservation when we first went in. Perhaps that’s the best way to go to make sure you have a table.

This restaurant came highly regarded on Trip Advisor, and we had overheard a few other hotel guests mention the place. it is hard to find, but again, just ask a local and they can point you in the the right direction.
we ate here 2 nights. it’s very popular, and even in the off season, it was busy. we showed up at 7:30 pm to a near full house and within minutes, the place would have a waiting list. the food is good… sometimes. and the service is good… sometimes.
atmosphere is cozy, but the freaking front door never shut all the way. so a frigid cold breeze was always blowing in. i thought it was just us, but all the local diners didn’t remove their coats and repeatedly got up to try to close the door. huge negative for atmosphere.
first night of service… perfect english and we were able to communicate with our server. the grilled octopus was delicious… perfect in fact. we had an octopus salad as well which was also divine. the bread they bring out, again, is not free (customary in all the places we ate). desert was a ridiculously good slice of pineapple cake. i mean, RIDICULOUS! we left feeling so satiated and happy.
second night. colder still. different server and we had a horrendous time communicating. we ordered mushroom appetizer and collard soup. specifically stated (as the previous night) «No meat, right?» and of course he nods his head yes, yes, and says «no meat». i also ordered a quail egg. mushrooms arrive… pork everywhere. we send it back. soup arrives… big chunks of chorizo floating in it. we send it back. quail arrives… except it’s half a quail, not the egg. we send it back. chef comes out… What’s the problem? we explain. make sure we explain no meat in our entrees.
the entrees come out. wife has the octopus again. significantly smaller portion than the previous night. my cod was like chewing the sole of my shoe. we were being too difficult i guess. it wasn’t meant to be. we left as soon as we could. no romantic lingering with more wine tonight.
overall, if you like to gamble, try this place… hit or miss.